Priyanka Gandhi Vadra during a roadshow in Moradabad on Thursday. (Photo: PTI)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday rejected allegations that the CBI and Enforcement Directorate (ED) target opposition leaders at the time of elections. “These offices work independently. The elections come in between…What can they do? The government has no role in it,” he told ANI in an interview.
However, a perusal of actions taken by various central agencies in the recent past shows that the timing of their operations has matched that of elections, and particularly targeted opposition leaders or those linked to them. On February 4, just 16 days ahead of Assembly elections in Punjab, the ED arrested Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi’s nephew Bhupinder Singh in a case of alleged illegal mining in the state. Incidentally, the ED case is based on an FIR registered in 2018. On January 3 this year, just over a month ahead of Assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh, the Income Tax Department conducted searches at over 30 premises linked to Samajwadi Party legislator and businessman Pushpraj alias Pampi Jain on allegations of tax evasion.